1637 million petroleum equivalent tons (PET), or 3.6 PET per inhabitant: that is the quantity of energy that was needed to satisfy the internal demand of the 25-member European Union in 2005, according to a report published last week by the Statistics Office of the EU (Eurostat). Though the level of consumption remained unchanged over that in 2004, the drop of production linked to European energy sources led to a net growth of imports of 4.5%: an inevitable consequence of this was a further hike in the rate of energy dependency, which in 2005 rose to 56% against 54% in the previous year. The biggest per capita consumption was registered in Finland (5.2 PET/inhabitant), Belgium (5.0) and Holland (4.9); the lowest energy consumption, in Latvia (1.5), followed by Lithuania, Poland and Portugal with 2.3 PET/inhabitant. The rate of energy dependency is striking: if we exclude Denmark (the only net exporter of energy in the EU), all member states are in fact dependent. With rates of 13% and 18.4% the UK and Poland are the only countries to remain below the threshold of 33%: at the opposite extreme is Cyprus, which is totally dependent on energy imports, followed by Portugal (99.4%), Luxembourg (99%), Latvia (94%) and Ireland (90.2%).
